Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about how the Council has charged Mrs X for emergency building works. The complaint is late and Mrs X can take court action if she considers the costs unreasonable. We cannot achieve the outcome Mrs X seeks.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains that, after her family home burned down, the Council did not communicate properly with the family before deciding to pay a company to do emergency works. The Council then placed a land charge on the property to recover the costs. Mrs X says the costs were unreasonably high, and the Council has not provided a breakdown of the costs.
2. Mrs X says this has caused the family significant stress at an already distressing time and wants the Council to reduce the costs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a Council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
5. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. In 2023, the Council put up a notice of its intention to exercise its powers under s78 of the Buildings Act to make the property safe and recover the costs. After seeing the notice, Mrs X says she tried to communicate with the Council about the notice, because she had already got a quote from a contractor to make the property safe. Mrs X says the Council did not respond to her attempts to discuss the matter, before it used its own contractor to do the works. The Council then looked to recover the costs by placing a land charge on the property. Mrs X says the charge is a lot higher than the quote her contractor gave.
9. The actions Mrs X complains about all occurred in 2023, but Mrs X complained to us in 2025. I have considered Mrs X’s circumstances and believe it would have been reasonable for a complaint to have been brought to us within 12months. So, the restriction in paragraph four applies and we will not investigate this complaint.
10. In any case, we could not achieve the outcome Mrs X seeks. Only the courts can determine whether the charges were reasonable. It would therefore be open to Mrs X to pursue legal proceedings to seek a reduction. We cannot achieve this outcome for Mrs X. While it may involve some expense, that does not automatically make court action unreasonable in relation to the size of the debt.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because the complaint is late, and only the courts can achieve the outcome Mrs X seeks.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman